Defending Raven (Mountain Mercenaries #7)(12)

Just when Zara thought she was going to have to leave and come back the next day to talk to Mags, the piece of metal covering the door slid back, and Mags was there.

Zara quickly stood and smiled uncertainly at the other woman. She’d always been a kind of mother figure to her. Zara valued her opinion and deeply cared what Mags thought of her.

“Zara? Is it really you?” Mags asked.

“It’s me.”

“Come here and give me a hug!” she ordered.

Zara sighed in relief and went over to hug the older woman. She smelled like sweat and the funk that permeated everything in the barrio, but Zara barely even noticed.

“I missed you,” Zara said softly in English.

“And I, you,” Mags returned.

“You don’t seem that surprised to see me,” Zara noted.

Mags chuckled, but the humor didn’t seem to reach her eyes. In fact, the other woman seemed exhausted. More tired than usual.

“That’s because I’m not. There are three men lurking around the barrio who obviously don’t belong here. And if I’m not mistaken, one of them is the man who took you back to the United States.”

Zara closed her eyes and huffed out a breath. If Mags had seen three men, that meant Dave was probably out there somewhere too. “I knew Meat was waiting for me, but I told him to stay hidden,” she said.

“I take it things went well with him?” Mags asked.

Feeling shy, Zara nodded.

“Good. I got good vibes from him,” Mags said. “Now, why are you here?”

The other women all started talking at once, telling Mags all about the clinic Zara planned to build and the food pantry. When they were done, Mags brought a hand up and cradled Zara’s cheek. “You always cared about everyone who had less than you.”

Zara grabbed Mags’s hand and held on tightly. “That’s not the only reason I’m here.”

Mags tilted her head in question.

In English, Zara said, “Meat’s friends are part of a group who travel around the world, rescuing women and children who are being abused or who’ve been kidnapped. Their leader’s wife disappeared ten years ago . . . and he’s spent the last decade frantically looking for her. He hired my boyfriend and the others for the team because he didn’t have any military experience himself.”

With every word Zara spoke, Mags’s face got whiter and whiter, until she looked as though she was going to keel over.

“I recognized you from a picture that was behind the bar at The Pit. The second Dave heard where you were, he made arrangements to come down.”

Mags abruptly crumpled to the floor. Her knees simply gave out.

Zara kneeled down in front of her and reached into her pocket, bringing out the pressed penny Dave had given her. She held it out. “He told me to give this to you, to prove that he’s your husband.”

Mags stared at the piece of copper as if it was a snake that would bite her hand off if she reached for it.

“He’s here, Mags. And unlike my own relatives, he hasn’t ever stopped trying to find you.”



Mags stared at the penny, and memories flickered through her brain as if she were watching an old movie. Dave smiling at her reaction to seeing the penny-smashing machine. Mags reaching into his pocket looking for change . . . and teasing him at the same time. Telling him they had to get a lucky penny so they could win big. And they had. She remembered how Dave had sworn he’d carry the penny with him always, before he’d tucked it into a pocket in his wallet.

She closed her eyes in despair. She’d pushed thoughts of her husband to the very recesses of her mind, for the most part, for her own sanity and self-preservation. Thinking about Dave and the love they shared was extremely painful; it had been especially difficult in the first year they’d been separated. The things she’d been made to do and endure had been so horrific that any thoughts of the way her life used to be were pure torture. She hadn’t wanted to remember how good he’d made her feel. How special and loved she’d been. All she could think about was surviving one day. Then the next. And the next.

But after years of keeping those memories at bay, they’d begun to sneak back in . . . particularly in the last few years. And after seeing Zara find love with her man, Mags couldn’t help but think about her long-lost husband even more frequently, about how things used to be.

And seeing that penny in Zara’s palm brought back so many painful recollections, Mags thought she was going to be physically sick.

“I can’t see him. I won’t!” Mags whispered.

Then what Zara had said sank in.

If the men lurking around the barrio were any indication, Dave was already here.

Here.

At one time, she would’ve been ecstatic to see him. To know he was here to take her away from Peru and what her life had become. But not anymore. She couldn’t leave. Wouldn’t.

Frantically, Mags looked around the hut and tried to think. She had to get out of there before Dave arrived. Had to hide.

The others stared at her with wide, confused eyes. They didn’t understand, but then again, they didn’t know her entire story. She’d had to keep it quiet. Not even the women who’d become more like daughters and sisters to her knew everything that had happened to her.

“Zara?” a male voice called quietly from the other side of the flimsy piece of metal they used as a door.